The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War

by Adam Arenson

Overview

The Civil War revealed what united as well as what divided Americans in the nineteenth century—not only in its deadly military conflict, but also in the broader battle of ideas, dueling moral systems, and competing national visions. Adam Arenson focuses this cultural civil war in St. Louis, the largest city along the border of slavery and freedom. From this vantage point, the Civil War era looks less like a fight between North and South over slavery or the West as a prize, and more like a messy struggle between northerners, southerners, and westerners, a clash among three incompatible regional visions, whose leaders argued about the definition and importance of Manifest Destiny and slavery politics. Arenson weaves this political history with analyses of paintings, architecture, and other cultural products, paying particular attention to institutions such as universities and railroads. The result is a vibrant history of the Civil War era from the heart of the Republic that enriches our understanding of America at a crossroads.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826220646
Publisher:	University of Missouri Press
Publication date:	08/31/2015
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Adam Arenson is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Urban Studies Program at Manhattan College in the Bronx. He writes about the history and memory of North America and the global nineteenth century, concentrating on the cultural and political history of slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction, as well as the development of cities. Arenson has also written for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic.

Full bio: Adam Arenson researches, writes, and teachs the history and memory of North America and the global nineteenth century. His work has concentrated on the cultural and political history of slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction, as well as the development of cities—from California to the Yukon Territory, from the province of Ontario to St. Louis to El Paso.

Writing accessible history, and engaging a wide audience, is important to him. He has written about his scholarship for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Arenson has been a contributor to Civil War Memory and the Making History Podcast. His latest popular publications can be accessed via adamarenson.com.

In his urban-studies research and teaching, Arenson aims to reconstruct how residents made sense of their surroundings. He uses digital-history methods to supplement the written record with material-culture findings and geographic information system (GIS) analysis. He is exploring the opportunities offered by data mining, database construction, and visualization, in collaboration with the open-source spatiotemporal data foundation MapStory.org.

What People are Saying About This

William Deverell

This is a superb book. Careful and bold all at once, it reminds us that the 'gateway to the West' played a major role not only in the coming of the Civil War but in the contests— cultural, social, and racial—it so tragically provoked.
— William Deverell, Director, Huntington –USC Institute on California and the West

Michael A. Morrison

A sweeping, illuminating work that offers a fresh perspective on the period from the Mexican War to the post-Reconstruction era. Adding a western dimension to the sectional crisis of the Civil War era, Arenson's narrative is revelatory.

— Michael A. Morrison, author of Slavery and the American West

Aaron Sachs

In compelling prose that balances brilliant analyses with rich narrative details and lively anecdotes, Arenson offers an important new argument about nineteenth-century U.S. history. His book combines the most thorough scholarship with the pleasures of a frontier romance.
— Aaron Sachs, author of The Humboldt Current

Iver Bernstein

Arenson's beautifully told story of the rise and fall of St. Louis's efforts to invent itself as a center of American enlightenment and empire in the long Civil War era shows Manifest Destiny as a lived reality, with intoxicating and toxic implications for ordinary Americans.
— Iver Bernstein, author of The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War

Ann Fabian

Arenson sets St. Louis at the center of nineteenth-century America's 'cultural civil wars' as dramas of competing visions of the nation played out on the city's streets and docks and in its courtrooms, churches, and classrooms. In this beautifully crafted book, the national stories we thought we knew take some surprising turns.
— Ann Fabian, author of The Skull Collectors

Louis S. Gerteis

From the Great Fire of 1849 to the completion of the Eads Bridge in 1874, Arenson examines the cultural civil war through a city that aspired to be the unifying center of the American continental empire. St. Louis' successes and failures richly illuminate national travails as the promise of Manifest Destiny succumbed to the politics of slavery.
— Louis S. Gerteis, author of Civil War St. Louis

Stephen Aron

An ambitious, innovative, and engaging look at the pivotal role St. Louis played in the cultural contest to determine the destiny of the United States.
— Stephen Aron, author of American Confluence

Editorial Reviews

In this short book, Arenson manages to identify an overwhelming array of issues that defined the American cultural ethos between the years 1848-1877. Arenson produces a highly provocative thesis that captures and explains regional alliances through a cultural prism. Arenson has something new to add to the literature of the Civil War, and he does so with a wonderfully nuanced argument and deft pen. Sure to have an enduring impact, this book delivers.”—The American Historical Review

“Arenson does an excellent job of showing the underlying ethnic, class, and gender dimensions of loyalty and disloyalty in this divided city. Throughout the book, Arenson deftly weaves national political history with analyses of paintings, architecture, and other cultural products.”—Journal of Southern History


“A beautifully written and strikingly original interpretation of the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. From the perspective of St. Louis, the Civil War was not simply a political struggle between North and South over the future of slavery in the territories. Instead, it involved the aspirations, prejudices, and tensions between rival ethnic, racial, and regional groups.”—H-Net Reviews

From the Publisher

In the elegantly written, extensively researched The Great Heart of the Republic Adam Arenson looks at Civil War St. Louis and tells how it was unable to set aside sectional differences to transform itself into a truly national city.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Jane Henderson

Arenson's The Great Heart of the Republic...reveals the fresh and complex insights that close study of Missouri can yield for our understanding of nineteenth-century American history...Arenson's book offers a much broader interpretation of the Civil War than a typical work of local history. Rather than provide a comprehensive account of St. Louis's past, he uses the city's story to reveal a "nuanced, intimate history of the Civil War era from the heart of the republic." The result is a beautifully written and strikingly original interpretation of the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. Like the authors of several recent works, Arenson wishes to reorient the discussion of sectionalism and the Civil War by emphasizing the West's importance in shaping the conflict. In Arenson's recounting, the war looks less like a fight between North and South over slavery, and more like a messy struggle between northerners, southerners, and westerners from a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds...Arenson's work is wide ranging and ambitious, covering art, architecture, and historical memory as well as the history of politics and policy...Readers will discover a creative history of mid-nineteenth-century America in microcosm.

History News Network - Andre M. Fleche

A sweeping, illuminating work that offers a fresh perspective on the period from the Mexican War to the post-Reconstruction era. Adding a western dimension to the sectional crisis of the Civil War era, Arenson's narrative is revelatory.

Michael A. Morrison

This is a superb book. Careful and bold all at once, it reminds us that the 'gateway to the West' played a major role not only in the coming of the Civil War but in the contests— cultural, social, and racial—it so tragically provoked.

William Deverell

Arenson has something new to add to the literature of the Civil War, and he does so with a wonderfully nuanced argument and deft pen. Sure to have an enduring impact, this book delivers on its promise.

Stephen D. Englen Historical Review

Arenson's beautifully told story of the rise and fall of St. Louis's efforts to invent itself as a center of American enlightenment and empire in the long Civil War era shows Manifest Destiny as a lived reality, with intoxicating and toxic implications for ordinary Americans.

Iver Bernstein

Arenson sets St. Louis at the center of nineteenth-century America's 'cultural civil wars' as dramas of competing visions of the nation played out on the city's streets and docks and in its courtrooms, churches, and classrooms. In this beautifully crafted book, the national stories we thought we knew take some surprising turns.

Ann Fabian

In compelling prose that balances brilliant analyses with rich narrative details and lively anecdotes, Arenson offers an important new argument about nineteenth-century U.S. history. His book combines the most thorough scholarship with the pleasures of a frontier romance.

Aaron Sachs

An ambitious, innovative, and engaging look at the pivotal role St. Louis played in the cultural contest to determine the destiny of the United States.

Stephen Aron

From the Great Fire of 1849 to the completion of the Eads Bridge in 1874, Arenson examines the cultural civil war through a city that aspired to be the unifying center of the American continental empire. St. Louis' successes and failures richly illuminate national travails as the promise of Manifest Destiny succumbed to the politics of slavery.

Louis S. Gerteis

Arenson has something new to add to the literature of the Civil War, and he does so with a wonderfully nuanced argument and deft pen. Sure to have an enduring impact, this book delivers on its promise.

American Historical Review - Stephen D. Engle

Arenson has something new to add to the literature of the Civil War, and he does so with a wonderfully nuanced argument and deft pen. Sure to have an enduring impact, this book delivers on its promise.
— Stephen D. Engle

American Historical Review

In the elegantly written, extensively researched The Great Heart of the Republic Adam Arenson looks at Civil War St. Louis and tells how it was unable to set aside sectional differences to transform itself into a truly national city.
— Jane Henderson

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Arenson's The Great Heart of the Republic...reveals the fresh and complex insights that close study of Missouri can yield for our understanding of nineteenth-century American history...Arenson's book offers a much broader interpretation of the Civil War than a typical work of local history. Rather than provide a comprehensive account of St. Louis's past, he uses the city's story to reveal a "nuanced, intimate history of the Civil War era from the heart of the republic." The result is a beautifully written and strikingly original interpretation of the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. Like the authors of several recent works, Arenson wishes to reorient the discussion of sectionalism and the Civil War by emphasizing the West's importance in shaping the conflict. In Arenson's recounting, the war looks less like a fight between North and South over slavery, and more like a messy struggle between northerners, southerners, and westerners from a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds...Arenson's work is wide ranging and ambitious, covering art, architecture, and historical memory as well as the history of politics and policy...Readers will discover a creative history of mid-nineteenth-century America in microcosm.
— Andre M. Fleche

History News Network